Hum, interesting two bear.
This is a hell of a long post but worth the read to all new seng growers using wild seed or purchased seed.
Sounds like you have 3 acres that has some mature ginseng in it already. This is a good thing indicating the conditions must be decent already for soil, canopy etc. I agree with Frank and others. 3 acres is plenty of space.
So having 70 plants ranging from 4 prongs to baby 2 year old's tells a story. It's kind of like a spot I have been stewarding for 10 plus years. Wheres the young 3 prongs?????? You have old plants and very young plants with very little plants in the middle age range and there is a reason this occurs. More to follow.
I have a spot just like that. It has 200 4 prongs in it with very few little young ones or any 3 prongs at all. The old 4 prong plants are isolated to one area in a woods that looks the same throughout. The mother plant which I found was knee high or more and the root was transplanted. It was well over 60 years old. It most likely produced seed that grew into some of the other plants over the years in an area only 100 feet by 100 feet approximately.
There is another spot a 1/2 acre away that has 30 4 prongs in it. However, nowhere else in the ENTIRE 24 acre woods is there any seng other than these two spots.
Either someone planted it many many years ago and this is whats left. Or it all stems from seed dispersed from the mother plant that was left behind back in the day and these are the sole survivors.
The question is why isn't there more wild on your land. I ask myself the same question about my spot. I mean if someone was actively digging it, they wouldn't have left that many plants behind.
In my opinion your presumed wild plants are like my presumed wild plants. They are what's left behind from way back in the day from either someone that left them behind or they are SLOWLY reseeding themselves and were the lucky few not to get ate.
Either way it just PROVES the fact that ginseng is slow to grow. If no one has dug your plants or my plants for the last 50 years we should have many many more plants in these woods than we do. We know no one is digging in there or the plants we have wouldn't be in there still.
Whats happening is a few survive from seed each year and I mean very few. All of the other seed is eaten by something as well as young plants being eaten by something such as Deer, Voles, Mice, Slugs, Snails, Turkey etc.
The seeds you plant whether from the native plants in there or seed you buy will have an uphill battle unless you can control the environment.
I wish you the best. I am looking for 5 to 10 acres to plant on where I can control the environment. I will not plant another seed until I do. Been there and done that already and not many of the 350,000 seeds that I planted and that germinate well and came up are left there now after 5 years.
Not trying to discourage anyone from planting seed. Just know what you are getting into before you do. Control the environment and you will have a boatload of ginseng to show for your efforts. Plant wild simulated style and leave it up to mother nature and you will be left with 5% if you are lucky.
So if you do plant wild simulated style the further you space your seed out the better. Make it a little more difficult for the Deer, Voles, Mice, Slugs, Snails, Turkey etc.to find your ginseng. Growing wild simulated in a patch is like serving it up on a silver platter for everything in the woods to eat. Trust me on this folks. I know first hand.
Not giving up by any means. It just took me 5 years to find out what it's going to take to do it right. It's not hard to grow ginseng at all with some knowledge, experience, effort and the correct conditions. Keeping it is a totally different story.
Latt
